Sunday, May 12, 2013

The Best Ground Ball Pitchers in Baseball

In my previous post, I examined the performance of major league pitchers on ground balls from 2010-2012 and learned that the Tigers had the highest Batting Average Against (BAA) on grounders during the period. My theory was that their generally immobile infield defense was giving up a lot of hits, but I also noticed that not all their pitchers were affected similarly. In fact, Doug Fister (in his starts for the Tigers only) and Justin Verlander (each with a ground ball BAA of .212) were significantly better than the MLB average of .241. So, I wanted to see how they would rate after adjusting for infield defense.

Table 1 below shows the ground ball BAAs for all MLB pitchers allowing at least 400 ground balls from 2010-2012. The leader was Rockies right hander Jhoulys Chacin at .164. Chacin was also a fairly prolific ground ball pitcher with a 50% ground ball rate on batted balls. Given that Chacin plays half his games in Coors Field, a power hitter's paradise, his ability to gets outs on ground balls was certainly advantageous. Interestingly, the second pitcher on the list, Jeremy Hellickson of the Rays at .196, was much more of a fly ball pitcher (38% ground ball percentage).

Table 1: Batting Average Against on Ground Balls, 2010-2012

Pitcher

GB

H

BAA

Jhoulys
Chacin

590

97

.164

Jeremy
Hellickson

480

94

.196

Ricky
Romero

1,004

198

.197

Brad
Bergesen

486

97

.200

Kyle
Kendrick

678

136

.201

Shaun
Marcum

591

119

.201

Henderson
Alvarez

498

104

.209

Trevor
Cahill

1,074

225

.209

Tim
Hudson

1,140

240

.211

Kyle
Lohse

683

144

.211

Tim
Stauffer

444

94

.212

Justin
Verlander

811

172

.212

Clay
Buchholz

686

146

.213

Jered Weaver

657

140

.213

Mike
Leake

775

167

.215

The information used here was obtained free of charge from and is copyrighted by
Retrosheet.

Some pitchers benefited from better infield defense than others with team ground ball BAAs ranging from .221 for the Blue Jays to .258 for the Tigers. Of course, that is not all defense. It could be that some staffs allow harder hit ground balls than others. Over three years though, I would guess that it would even out enough to suggest something about team defense. I attempted to adjust for differences in infield defense by calculating the ground ball BAA of other pitchers on the same staff. For example, Chacin had a .180 BAA in 2010 compared to .230 for other Colorado pitchers. So, his BAA was 22% better than the average Rockie pitcher that year giving him a BAA+ of 122.

Chacin's numbers in 2011 and 2012 were 143 and 121 respectively and the weighted average of all three years was 133. Thus, he was 33% better at avoiding hits on ground balls than the average Colorado pitcher. Table 2 below shows that this was also the top BAA+ on ground balls in the majors. The worst pitcher at preventing hits on ground balls was Wade Davis of the Rays at 82 (18% worse than average).

Table 2: Adjusted Batting Average Against on Ground Balls, 2010-2012

Pitcher

GB

H

BAA

BAA+

Jhoulys
Chacin

590

97

.164

133

Brad
Bergesen

486

97

.200

121

Justin
Verlander

811

172

.212

120

Kyle
Kendrick

678

136

.201

118

Jeremy
Hellickson

480

94

.196

117

Luke
Hochevar

728

161

.221

116

Shaun
Marcum

591

119

.201

114

R.A.
Dickey

939

203

.216

113

Lucas
Harrell

426

97

.228

113

Ricky
Romero

1,004

198

.197

113

Kyle
Lohse

683

144

.211

112

Trevor
Cahill

1,074

225

.209

112

Tim
Hudson

1,140

240

.211

112

Mike Leake

775

167

.215

112

Jeremy
Guthrie

823

188

.228

112

The information used here was obtained free of charge from and is copyrighted by
Retrosheet.

Looking at Tigers pitchers, Verlander was only 12th on BAA (.212), but
moved up to third on BAA+ (120) because he was so much better at
preventing hits on grounders than other Tigers pitchers. Fister was
similarly good for the Tigers in 2011-2012, but falls back to 110 when including his time with the Mariners. Other Tigers pitchers included Rick Porcello (98), Anibal Sanchez (94) and Max Scherzer (85).